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Demonstrating once again that Israel remains a favorite whipping boy of the liberal media, there was John Heilemann of New York magazine on today's Morning Joe defending John Kerry's grotesque claim that Israel risked becoming an "apartheid state." According to Heilemann, Kerry's ugly accusation was "not actually an unreasonable statement." To his credit, Joe Scarborough promptly riposted, saying "I couldn't disagree with you more." View the video here.

And we thought Joe Scarborough was the one who had it in for Marco Rubio . . . Turns out, Mika Brzezinski really doesn't dig Rubio. At all. On today's Morning Joe, Mika painted Rubio as an unprincipled pol "sucking up" to Donald Trump in order to be his VP pick. Mika: "he's the only one who will go against everything he believes in and say whatever Trump wants him to. He'll do whatever Trump tells him to do." Ouch. View the video here.

Mark it down, said Joe Scarborough. Okay, done. On today's Morning Joe, Scarborough repeatedly, emphatically, declared that Ted Cruz's campaign is "over." The campaign ended, said Scarborough, when Cruz lost evangelicals in South Carolina to Trump, despite the Donald's praise of Planned Parenthood. Scarborough let it be known that he would have voted for Jeb Bush, and also admires John Kasich. But with Jeb gone, Joe wants to clear the field of both Kasich and Cruz to set up a one-on-one between Rubio and Trump. Given the criticism of Scarborough for what some of us saw as bias against Rubio,...

Newly-leaked audio shows MSNBC hosts Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough chatting with Donald TrumpDonald TrumpObama to visit Florida on Friday Much of the recording, released by comedian Harry Shearer on his weekly radio show, seems typical of off-camera patter at television shows. But it also comes amid criticism, some of it from CNN and other rivals to MSNBC, that the "Morning Joe" team is too supportive or close to Trump, the GOP presidential frontrunner. In one exchange, Brzezinski calls Trump's decision to call two men onstage to a rally last week after they confronted a protester a "wow moment." "You...

If there was one theme on today's Morning Joe, it was Joe Scarborough's relentless, merciless mocking of the notion that Marco Rubio has an electoral "firewall" in Nevada. It began with Mika Brzezinski's citing of a National Review article from December that spoke of such a firewall. Joe, butter not melting in his mouth, turned to Mark Halperin, coyly wondering why he was laughing at the notion. Halperin opined that, in fact, Donald Trump was likely to carry Nevada with his biggest margin yet. Scarborough returned repeatedly to his routine, even working it into a Richard Haass report on the...

Talk about setting someone up to fail . . . Heading into a contest, politicians traditionally like to lower expectations. But Joe Scarborough has raised expectations for Marco Rubio almost to the roof. On today's Morning Joe, Scarborough repeatedly cited talk that if Marco Rubio doesn't finish second in the South Carolina primary, "he has to get out of the race." Chuckling through Joe's comments, Mark Halperin batted away talk of a less-than-second-place finish forcing Rubio out of the race: "with all due respect, that's one of the silliest things I've heard this cycle. Rubio needs to beat Bush here...

GOP front-runner Donald Trump refused to pick sides in the conflict between Israel and Palestine in last night’s town hall on MSNBC. “I don’t want to get into it,” he told moderators Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski. “If I win, I don’t want to be in a position where I’m saying to you [my choice] and the other side now says, ‘We don’t want Trump involved…let me be sort of a neutral guy,” said the billionaire businessman. Trump described the Middle Eastern struggle as the “toughest deal in the world right now to make.” “A lot of people say an...

On today's on Morning Joe, Joe Scarborough flatly stated that people that know him, as in his family, know whom he's voting for, and "it's not Donald Trump!" That's newsworthy because Scarborough has been accused by many, as here, here and here, of being in the tank for Trump. Clashing with Time's Joe Klein, Scarborough said that, while not supporting Trump, he and Mika Brzezinski have simply been making the case that for months, the media have been "dead wrong" about Trump in constantly predicting his imminent demise. Klein, meanwhile, paid a very backhanded compliment to Trump. According to Klein,...

"If I hold you any closer, I'll be in back of you." That was Groucho's famous line in A Day at the Races. It's also Hillary's strategy in South Carolina, as she hugs President Obama as close as she can in an effort to appeal to African-Americans, who make up a majority of Dem primary voters there. Joe Scarborough threw a serious spanner into Hillary's strategy on today's Morning Joe. Scarborough displayed a tweet from Hillary spox Brian Fallon saying how "strange" it is that leaks about investigations into Hillary "seem to emerge on the eve of debates and primaries."...

On today's Morning Joe, Joe Scarborough forcefully sought to refute the notion that Chris Christie's takedown of Marco Rubio in the last GOP debate was an unprovoked attack. Scarborough painted a very different picture, one in which by dint of his town hall work, Christie had been steadily climbing in the New Hampshire polls--until Rubio unleashed a wave of negative advertising on Christie that drove his numbers back down. It was only then that Christie counter-attacked, suggested Joe. Scarborough said pundits were either "ignorant" or "lying" to their readers if they portrayed Christie as "mean" for having exposed Rubio as...

Everything wrong with Jeb Bush can be summed up in his approach to border security and American sovereignty. As we all now know, the former Florida governor considers illegal immigration an "act of love" on the part of the illegal immigrant sneaking into America illegally. Wednesday morning on "Morning Joe," after barely getting out of New Hampshire alive, Bush repeatedly described frontrunner Donald Trump's proposed temporary ban on foreign Muslims as "horrific." You don't have to agree with the idea of Trump's temporary ban to see the benefits of such a thing, or why two-thirds of Republican voters in a...

Bill Clinton has lost his fastball. That's an emerging theme from this campaign season, and it was on glaring display on today's Morning Joe. Introducing a clip of Clinton [dressed like a lumberjack] attacking Bernie Sanders in New Hampshire, Mika Brzezinski said the ex-prez had picked up the "hatchet"--not a good image for a would-be statesman. After the clip aired, Joe Scarborough called it "painful." Mike Barnicle said it was a "cringe" moment, with Chuck Todd seconding the assessment. View the video here.

Recent controversial statements from feminist icon Gloria Steinem and former Secretary of State Madeline Albright sparked MSNBC's Joe Scarborough to unleash a rant against feminists who did not stand up for people like Monica Lewinsky. The "Morning Joe" panel was discussing a recent statement Steinem made on Bill Maher's HBO show (and her subsequent apology posted on Facebook) about young women who follow Bernie Sanders and Albright's warning of a "special place in hell" for women who do not help other women. Scarborough began his rant with the question, "Where were these women in 1998 when a young 22-yr-old intern...

Then why the hell weren't those top journalists shouting it from the rooftops and in breaking news banners? . . . On today's Morning Joe, Joe Scarborough said "as we were leaving Iowa, I heard from a lot of top journalists who whispered "you know Bernie won." I heard that time and time again. 'You know Bernie won.'" With Scarborough asking "where is this, Bolivia in the 1930s?." and Steve Schmidt saying it was "shady as hell," the blame was laid at the feet of the Democrat party, which runs an intentionally process so it can control things. No doubt....

Joe Scarborough has denied having it in for Marco Rubio. But on today's Morning Joe, he went on an anti-Rubio rant so protracted that one segment wasn't enough to contain it. Scarborough first called Rubio the "Republican Obama," who's been marketed like a "bag of potato chips," and the "emptiest suit" in the campaign. After a commercial break, Scarborough hectored Rick Santorum, who has just endorsed Rubio, repeatedly challenging him to name Rubio's accomplishments. By all means, let's carefully examine the record of all candidates. But for Scarborough to deny that, for whatever reason, he has a grudge against Rubio...

If you want Chris Matthews to change his mind, just wait a minute. In just over a minute on Morning Joe today, Matthews changed his election prediction from agreeing with Joe Scarborough that Trump would win and that Bernie Sanders would squeak out a victory to changing his prediction to a win by Hillary Clinton. However, the most fascinating part of his quick change of prediction was his frozen face when put on the spot by Scarborough as weird undulations played out over the surface. A body language expert could have a field day analyzing what was going through the...

Hillary Clinton's criminal defense attorney made a surprise appearance on today's Morning Joe, saying . . . oh, wait: that wasn't Hillary's lawyer--it was Andrea Mitchell. Same difference. Relying on her sources, Mitchell asserted "I don't think there is the legal culpability here." Andrea first suggested that Hillary lacked "intent." Joe Scarborough pushed back hard, noting that the statute also criminalizes being "reckless" with classified material. Mitchell then switched to a truly absurd argument. Noting that the official State Department system had been hacked, Mitchell said that Hillary's "defense could well be the whole damn system is vulnerable." Shot back...

**SNIP** "All of our sources high up are telling us... that this investigation is far more advanced than we the public knows," Scarborough said, before asking the panelists what information they're getting. "Well, there are three things that people are keying off of. First of all, there are a lot of chatter amongst FBI agents, many of whom have never been big fans of the Clintons. But a lot of FBI agents seem to be saying something is happening here," Bloomberg News analyst Mark Halperin said. "Second is from a legal point of view, you look at the recent developments...

With news of the death of Paul Kantner of Jefferson Airplane, let's take a line from another group of the late 60s, Buffalo Springfield: "there's something happening here." What it is ain't exactly clear, but it doesn't seem to bode well for Hillary Clinton. Today's Morning Joe featured an ominous exchange between Joe Scarborough and Mark Halperin. The notion was that a variety of sources--from a senior network exec, to top Obama admin officials, to FBI agents--are saying the same thing: the FBI investigation of Hillary is much further along than most people realize. Listen to Halperin: "the body language...

Somebody slap an 'L' on Bill Clinton's forehead . . . Slick Willie has been called many things: a grifter, a snake-oil salesman, even an alleged rapist. But one label that hasn't been affixed to him is the L-word: loser. Until this morning. On today's Morning Joe, after airing Bill Clinton's recent attack on Bernie Sanders, Scarborough said "I know I'm listening to a loser." Continued Scarborough: "I'm listening to somebody that's losing, that's saying 'oh, they've got better slogans, oh, they've got better this, their polls may be a little higher now, or oh, they may be more angry,...